According to results that I got at Google at the moment that I was writing this entry, Twitter has almost 33 million pages. As I said above, 4 of these 33 are from HTTPS pages.

But it doesn't stop here. Twitter has a mobile version that is hosted into a subdomain (m.twitter.com) where you can access Twitter profiles. Again, upon conducting a new search we can see almost 800,000 indexed pages in this subdomain.

I can actually access my Twitter profile through 4 URLs:

http://twitter.com/fabioricotta

https://twitter.com/fabioricotta

http://m.twitter.com/fabioricotta

https://m.twitter.com/fabioricotta

As everyone knows, this is not good for Twitter to have these 5 million duplicated pages. If they create some policies to solve this duplicated content problem, those indexed pages could get some new visitors and they can redirect all the juice to the right pages.

Twitter Can Help Your Link Building Strategy

The connection between this article and Andrew’s article is not only the Twitter subject, but also an image that he posted showing an inbound link coming from m.twitter.com domain. This is really curious.

What some people do not know is that all the links into this subdomain are followed. Even the external ones! When you submit a new URL as a tweet, this URL can receive a juice coming from a mobile domain.

You must consider using a Tiny URL System that uses 301 into these URLs, so you can receive all (or part of) the link juice.

Tiny URL Systems

I've researched some tiny URL systems and have built a list below that shows the major systems and if they use 301 redirection:

TinyURL.com - 301 redirect

Tiny.CC - 302 redirect

Metamark.net (xrl.us) - 301 redirect

TubeURL.com - 302 redirect

RubyURL.com - 301 redirect

Migre.me - 301 redirect

SnipURL.com - 301 redirect

Is.gd - 301 redirect

Short.to - 301 redirect

Conclusions

Twitter is a really good system, but like many of systems in the web it suffers duplicated content. A good solution for this dupe content is to insert the new canonical tag, pointing all the versions to the HTTP one.

If you are planning to explore all Twitter resources into your SEO strategy, you should consider create some good links with a tiny URL system that uses 301 redirection, giving you some Twitter juice.

I hope you liked this article and it will be really nice to receive some feedback about these ideas.

Really like the article, some good points raised. I didn't realise that some URL shorteners 302 and some 301. Do you have control over which URL shortener you use in Twitter?Also, I like Rebecca's point too, it always helps if you have *some* idea of where the link will take you. I seem to remember someone using URL shorteners to point people at dodgy websites, so having the actual link show up in a title/alt tag will allow users to see the URL and decide how dodgy it looks.

Nice work investigating the index status for the various incarnations of Twitters domain. I already new about m.twitter.com but didn't realise that there were https: versions as well.

This fits in quite nicely with Will Critchlow's post over on the main blog. Makes me wonder wether part of the efect he's seeing with pages getting indexed with only nofollowed links is actually the result of these subtley hidden followed links from m.twitter.com (although that wouldn't go far enough to explain the same effect resulting from the nofollowed Wikipedia links he mentions in that post).

Of course if the fact that twitter's mobile pages carry followed links now becomes common knowledge it's surely only a matter of time until the spammers push that exploit too far and Twitter will be forced to close that loophole (like they did with the followed links from profile descriptions last year).

On a side note, one of the benefits of URL shorteners likw zi.ma or cli.gs (once you get over the fact that hovering doesn't show you the full link) is that they can easily be edited to add your own custom text, helping to give viewers a hint of what they'll find on the other side of the link (unless you lie http://cli.gs/this-is-not-a-rick-roll ;-) which, when coupled with followed links from Twitter mobile, can give you a way to influence your anchor text.

Interesting stuff. I don't believe there were indexed links from m.twitter, but definitely worth keeping an eye on... I'm surprised they aren't nofollowing them, to be honest - I suspect they may well start soon...

Good post. This is interesting. Although I'm sure twitter could care less about SEO... their business doesn't depend on their pages being found online.

And I'm afraid we, as SEOs, always look at different tools as a quick and easy way to gain a few more links, thus exploiting them and promoting spamming activities. Sure, you can spam twitter with links and gain some juice, but note one thing:

Popular items get retwitted on twitter, so those are the really important links you will get. So if you promote poor content, you won't get any retweets... just like it happens with "real life" link baiting. So only promote good links, or interesting ones. And NEVER promote links just for the sake of getting them out there. Build good content and promote good content should be a golden rule for SEOs.

We've just begun using twitter to promote our marketing work and it's been a huge learning experience, as well as a lot of fun. It is very interesting to me to see the things that do and don't get re-tweeted, and the only thing I can say is that you actually HAVE TO HAVE a relationship with your followers in order for them to re-tweet your stuff. So, if you're going to use twitter, use it as a social marketing tool as well as for SEO.

I think this is really timely (at least for me) I have been exploring this as a useful tool. We all know that you can easily twitter your life away. However I really do think there is an underlying tool for business here if it is focused in the right way and not abused.

Even if the link building is limited in effect for search engines, all these links DO bring actual humans to the site, which is where commerce really begins.

I do not have any data about this but in some initial studies I saw that users from Twitter convert better than users from SERPS bc they trust in you information (link provided). I want to see some real stats about it.

Although you can see many urls, servers and their services, if configured properly can all point to the same content, even with database(s). Most hosting providers give you unlimited subdomains (anything.(dot)) before the actual domain name (twitter.com). So someone has assigned many sub domains (yes https also) to the primary domain to exponentiate the links scooped up by the search engines. Quite the smart thing if you ask me. This site is all about linkages...right. You could essentially use every alphabet before the .(dot) and watch the linkages expand. Kinda like cheating but if you are in for the market share you have to be on the bleeding edge of insanity to keep up with it all.

Tiny URLs also point to the same content but if you are in business and are using twittered shortened (masked) urls, eventually they go bad, get moved or changed, then your efforts to build legitimate links are disrupted. I try not to use them if possible, and if I must, I only use them on expendible locations that are not part of my mainstay links.

This kind of reporting is excellent, and makes you actually think about what you are trying accomplish in whatever it is that you do. Bravo to Fabio!

Great Job on the post! So, yes, it is very easy to twitter ones life away, but I've found that a gentle influx of business info is actually apprecated by most when done with thought and caution. How they are going to keep the spam crew at bay, is beyond me.

Besides increasing traffic to my blog, on a personal level, i love the links others put out there to things I am interested in. The link to this post is a great example of the "twitter help line". Cheers!

Nice post. We just recently had a "meetup of SEO's in Baltimore" discussing this topic. Some people have seen a significant increase in leads from Twitter driven traffic. I will pass this post on to our group. Thanks

Nice post. I started using twitter for real a few weeks ago and I´m still trying to figure it out and this stuff here is good.

I think it´s easy to lose your day on twitter with all the chit chat but if you make a good use of it with moderation it can be great for traffic. I´m optimistic and looking for more articles like this.